Blizzcon 2013 Recap
We have included a few points from each of the Warlords of Draenor panels, but there is a lot more information in each post.

New Character Models

The old Dwarf male has 1,160 polygons and was mirrored on both sides. The new model is 7,821 polygons and has higher texture resolutions. The face doesn't have to be symmetrical anymore.

They went 956 to 5,408 polygons on the Gnomes. 130 to 196 bones. Texture resolution was 2 to 5x higher depending on the area of the body.

Dwarf Female, Tauren Male, and Female Troll models are all being worked on right now.

All of the original races, Draenei, and Blood Elves will be getting new models for Warlords.

Worgen and Goblin won't be getting new models right away. The team will take a look at those models after all of the other ones are done.

Facial hair is animated using bones.

Capes are now animated using bones to flow more naturally.

Gnome female pigtails are now animated.

Enchanted Fey Dragon Mount
The Enchanted Fey Dragon will be a store mount. It will be sold alone or in a combo pack with another pet for the Make a Wish Foundation.

Q&A Recap
These are some of the more important points from the Q&As today.

Warlords Release Date

Another MoP patch would delay WoD, so Patch 5.5 isn't going to happen. The entire team is working on WoD right now, so any more MoP content would slow down development.

Q: "Typically after you announce something it is another year, but we are at Patch 5.4 now. What content do you have planned for between now and then?" A: "Any content we do now will delay the expansion by the same amount of time it took us to make that content. We are completely focused on making the next expansion and will try to deliver that as soon as we can, hopefully on a shorter cycle than players are imagining, but you never know, we will have to see."

Q: "Typically that would be in the Winter of next year. Does that mean it is a goal to bring it in to Summer or Spring?" A: "Well certainly the goal is before that, but we'll see, it is very hard for us to predict."

Dungeons and Raids

The new Flex loot model will work similar to how Master Loot does today, but the number of drops will scale based on the number of people eligible for loot in the group. The personal loot system won't be removed, you will just have to opt in to it.

The number of drops will scale well with the number of players, as each additional player gives you a higher chance to get another drop, up to where it is guaranteed. This ensures that are no odd breakpoints that will restrict raid sizes.

The game has a Raid Browser that no one uses, so in WoD it will be expanded to support killing world bosses, doing achievements, finishing Shadowmourne, or any other activity. This will support cross realm groups and encourage people to do PuGs rather than completely random matchmaking.

Quests and Leveling

You can technically buy as many level 90s as you want if you buy another copy of the game, get the level 90, and then transfer the character to your main account each time. The team has talked about putting a level 90 purchase option in the store, but it hasn't been decided yet.

There will be a legendary questline again in WoD. The questline will be a little bit more custom to your class to help with the lack of class quests. Class quests are very resource intensive, so at most we might see one or two in WoD. (Maybe Shaman)

Leveling in WoD will be a fun and fast paced romp through the zones. The team is backing off the idea that leveling should be a long grind.

New Character Models

The team hasn't decided how new character models will be released yet. It could have all of the completed race at launch, or they could be added every patch.

There will be no free re-customization for characters after new character models. (See this blue post for more information, a final determination hasn't yet been made.)

Misc

There aren't any plans for another WoW Annual Pass. It was a good idea at the time because getting Diablo 3 free made it a good deal, but it isn't a good for the the D3 expansion.

Recruit a Friend will be back next week.

The tertiary stats may be limited to a certain slot, like speed only on boots. It will be rare enough that by the time you can farm them progression races will be over. They shouldn't have a big impact on progression races.

Racial balance will be tuned again in WoD, trying to narrow the gap. Goblin and Worgen have better balanced racials than many other races right now.

Warcraft Movie

Duncan Jones has played the Warcraft games, World of Warcraft, and even Lost Vikings. He originally played Ultima Online.

Jones liked the script, but it was very Alliance centric. He thought it would be better to make it about both sides and the original Warcraft.

There is concept art for Draenor, Dalaran, Ironforge, Stormwind

The story is Orcs vs Humans. Lothar and Durotan.

The style of this war movie will be similar to Gladiator, gritty.

The first movie has to be done right, then they can think about doing more.

The majority of the movie takes place in the Eastern Kingdoms.

The lore of this time doesn't have many female characters, but the producers are pushing for including some female characters.

We will see a preview sometime next year, maybe at Blizzcon.

The Lord of the Rings movies inspired Jones to want to do this movie. He wants to match or beat them at making an awesome movie.

The movie will be PG13, but the PG13 rating is shifting. You can get away with a lot more now and still be PG13.

Level 100 Talents
Keep in mind these talents will likely change significantly before release and are not final.

A powerful disease that deals 100 damage per stack every 3 sec for 30 sec. Each time it deals damage, it gains 1 stack, and jumps to another nearby enemy if possible. Cannot be spread by Pestilence.

Replaces Blood Plague.

Defile

1 Unholy, 30 yd range

Instant, 30 sec cooldown

Defiles the ground targeted by the Death Knight, causing 100 Shadow damage every 1 sec for 10 sec. Each time Defile deals damage, it increases in area and damage by 5%. This growth can occur a maximum of 3 times per second.

Replaces Death and Decay.

Breath of Sindragosa

15 Runic Power, plus 15 per sec

Instant, 1 min cooldown

Continuously deals 2000 Shadowfrost damage every 1 sec to enemies in a cone in front of you. This effect lasts until canceled or Runic Power is exhausted.

Conjures a focusing crystal at the target location, which is attackable by only the Mage. The crystal will absorb the power of all damage deal to it. After 10 sec, it will release bursts of energy, dealing damage equal to 130% of the damage it took, split between all enemies within 8 yards, over 6 sec.

Falling Stars

Arcane (Arcane Orb)

Instant, 15 sec cooldown

Launches an Arcane Orb forward from the Mage's position, traveling up to 40 yards, dealing 1000 Arcane damage to enemies it passes through. Grants the Mage an Arcane Charge every time it deals damage.

Fire (Meteor)

1000 Mana, 40 yd range

Instant, 45 sec cooldown

Calls down a meteor which lands at the target location after 3 sec, dealing 10000 Fire damage, split evenly between all targets within 8 yards. Also burns the ground, dealing an additional 2000 Fire damage over 10 sec to enemies in the area.

Frost (Comet Storm)

1000 Mana, 40 yd range

Instant, 30 sec cooldown

Calls down a series of 7 icy comets on and around the target, each of which does 2000 damage, split between all enemies within 5 yards of its impact point.

When you critically strike with an autoattack, you gain an additional combo point on your target.

Shadow Reflection

20 yd range

Instant, 2 min cooldown

Summon a shadow of yourself on the target that will watch you and memorize your ability usage for the next 8 sec. After this time, it will mimic the memorized abilities on tis target over the next 8 sec.

Death from Above

50 Energy

Instant, 20 sec cooldown

Requires One-Handed Melee Weapon

Finishing move that consumes combo points on the target to empower your weapons with shadow energy and perform a devastating two-part attack.

You whirl around, dealing Shadow damage to all enemies within 8 yards, then leap into the air and slice into your target on the way back down, dealing additional Shadow damage.

While your Lightning Shield is active, lightning will strike a random enemy within 40 yards that you are in combat with every 3.00 sec for 2000 Nature damage.

Restoration (Condensation Totem)

100 Mana

Instant

Summons a Water Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 1 min that collects 25% of all overhealing, and grants it to the Shaman as spell power toward their next Healing Wave, Healing Surge, Greater Healing Wave, Chain Heal, or Riptide.

Storm Elemental Totem

1022 Mana

Instant, 5 min cooldown

Summons an Air Totem with 6000 health at the feet of the caster, calling forth a Greater Storm Elemental to hurl gusts of winds on the caster's enemies. Each gust of wind does damage to the enemy, and then heals all allies within 15% yards for 100% of the damage dealt, split evenly. Lasts until cancelled.

Reach of the Elements

Elemental & Enhancement (Spew Lava)

40 yd range

Instant, 45 sec cooldown

Empowers your current Fire totem with the power of lava, causing it to spew globs of lava at a random enemy within 40 yards every 1.00 sec for 15 sec. Each glob of lava deals 2000 Fire damage to all enemies within 8 yards.

Each raid difficulty has its own lockout. They will be loot based lockouts, allowing you to kill the same boss multiple times per week and only get loot once a week.

There will be more optional content and less quest hubs that have to be unlocked by another chain first, along with more dynamic events and treasures found in the world.

There will be few or no daily quests at level 100! It will be a mix of the story in 5.1 and Timeless Isle in 5.4.

Hit, Expertise, Dodge, Parry, Reforging, all gone!

The primary stats on armor will now change based on your spec. Plate drops and it will have whatever stats your class needs, no more Intellect plate! No more PvP Priest Healing set and PvP Priest DPS set, just a Priest set.

Quests and Leveling
You can technically buy as many level 90s as you want if you buy another copy of the game, get the level 90, and then transfer the character to your main account each time. The team has talked about putting a level 90 purchase option in the store, but it hasn't been decided yet.

That part scares me a bit, but we'll see I guess.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by MonsieuRoberts

They've stated that Blood Elves and Draenei are not getting updated.

I do wonder if there will be a huge outcry after the new models are done, seeing as female Belves and Draenei are super common and won't stack up to any of the other models in the game.

That whole option buying a 90 from their store. I just find that appalling. I hope it doesn't go through. *Sigh* Who even thought of having this boost to 90 to begin with???

90 levels is quite a lot of levelling to do if you want to roll a new character for the expansion. Especially if you've already got multiple 90s already and therefore have seen all the content multiple times. *shrugs*

What I'm really pumped about is the new player models, and their new animations to go with them. Did you guys see the Orc casting animation? Omfg... That, and account-wide boa items (finaallllyyyy!). It's going to be awesome to sign in and see my character feel really animated in an amazing way. Casting abilities will have a fresh feel, even if i get used to it a week later.

I personally would have thought it awesome if they would have been honest about the release and just said "We will be releasing around the same date that one of the next highly anticipated MMO's (ESO, Wildstar...) releases because in business you want to squash the competition". Everyone knows that that is the plan, it would have been spectacular if they had the testicular fortitude to challenge the other companies to bring it and may the best game win.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Enan1981

That whole option buying a 90 from their store. I just find that appalling. I hope it doesn't go through. *Sigh* Who even thought of having this boost to 90 to begin with???

That is one of the best things i've heard, along with the stat squish. I haven't played since early cataclysm and knowing that i would be able to just skip the whole panda parade goes on the plus side of reasons to maybe return in my book.

I do wonder if there will be a huge outcry after the new models are done, seeing as female Belves and Draenei are super common and won't stack up to any of the other models in the game.

Wrong!! If you actually read the new models section at the top of page you will see that Belfs and Draenei will be getting new models..

New Character Models

The old Dwarf male has 1,160 polygons and was mirrored on both sides. The new model is 7,821 polygons and has higher texture resolutions. The face doesn't have to be symmetrical anymore.
They went 956 to 5,408 polygons on the Gnomes. 130 to 196 bones. Texture resolution was 2 to 5x higher depending on the area of the body.
Dwarf Female, Tauren Male, and Female Troll models are all being worked on right now.All of the original races, Draenei, and Blood Elves will be getting new models for Warlords.
Worgen and Goblin won't be getting new models right away. The team will take a look at those models after all of the other ones are done.
Facial hair is animated using bones.
Capes are now animated using bones to flow more naturally.
Gnome female pigtails are now animated.